


Kissing Practice

by Kagemihari (soracia)



Series: All's Well That Ends Well [1]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, M/M, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-27
Updated: 2005-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-24 09:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soracia/pseuds/Kagemihari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kippei lets his feelings get in the way of his good judgement, and fortunately An is there to give her brother a stern talking to and a couple of shame on yous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kissing Practice

Tachibana An had been amused when she saw Kamio kissing Shinji while they were taking a break at tennis practice. She knew that it had taken a week for Kamio to talk Shinji into it. She'd overheard them arguing about it at several points during the week, and it had amused her more each time she heard it.

"Hey, Shinji, can I kiss you?"

Blink. Shinji had stared at his friend. "But I'm a guy, I don't know what Akira wants to kiss me for when I'm a guy, Akira likes girls and kissing guys is different than kissing girls so why would he want to kiss me? I don't want to kiss you anyway, I like you but I don't like you like that, so why should I kiss you?"

"Come on, Shinji, I just wanna practice, I need to get better at it."

"Practice? Why do you need to practice kissing, it's easy, you just kiss the other guy....well I guess if it's you it would be a girl, but it's still easy, it's not like you need to practice, and who do you wanna kiss anyway? Must be An-chan, I've seen you looking at her and I bet you wanna kiss her, don't you? You should kiss her instead, I bet she wouldn't mind practicing with you..."

"No! An-chan is special... I'm not kissing An if I don't know what I'm doing!" Akira protested, scowling. "You're my best friend, it's not that big of a deal, just help me out here. Come on, please?"

"I don't want to kiss you." Stubborn shake of the head as Shinji folded his arms and looked away. "You wanna kiss girls, it's not the same, you can't practice with a guy."

Akira had been exasperated. "It's not that different! It feels different but you do it the same... I don't 'specially wanna kiss you either, but I can't ask anyone else to practice and I'm not gonna kiss some random girl just for that."

"No," Shinji had repeated. "Not you."

Several variations on this exchange had occurred in the following days, and An had been fighting giggles as she listened, torn between watching the drama play out and interrupting to inform Akira that if he wanted to kiss her he should just do it, damn it.

Today at practice they were taking a break, An had seen them leaning with their heads close together, hardly noticing Kippei watching them as he often did, keeping an eye on everyone. But she had not missed the brief, almost measuring glance Shinji had flicked that way before he said suddenly, "Okay, you can kiss me if you want to, Akira," and leaned forward expectantly.

Akira had looked startled at the sudden demand, and An was fairly certain he never would have thought of doing it here even if Shinji had been agreeable before this.

"What, here?" he had sputtered, staring at Shinji, and Shinji had impatiently grabbed a handful of his shirt, pulling him closer.

"Yes," he had grumbled, "you said you wanted to, so okay, you can, but right now. Kiss me now."

Akira hadn't known quite what to do with that, but Shinji was hard to say no to on the best of occasions, and Akira wasn't that good at it anyway. An was willing to bet that he wasn't even sure how he found himself kissing his best friend right there on the tennis court, and doing a damn fine job of it apparently, but she had been very amused. She could tease Akira about this for ages, after she finished kissing him herself of course.

She was not quite sure, however, if she had seen anything when a sudden flash of something crossed her brother's face at the sight, if his eyes briefly, abruptly looked shocked or almost stricken before his expression resolved itself into stern inscrutability.

"Kamio and Shinji!" he ordered, sounding slightly annoyed. "Not here. Do what you like on your own time, but there will be none of that at my tennis practice." He sent them back to work, and An quickly dismissed the look she wasn't sure she had seen. Surely not.

She had forgotten about it entirely by the time practice ended, and it didn't occur to her again for a good three days. By that time, she was mystified. Something was bothering Kippei, and she had no idea what it was. There was a tournament coming up, so they were practicing hard, and he worrying like he always did, but it was more than that. It was different.

She resolved to ask him about it later, and put it out of her mind until they were home again, and Kippei was doing paperwork, looking at his notes and trying to solve the lineup for the matches they'd be facing.

"There," he said finally, sighing and laying the finished sheet down on the table. She picked it up curiously, turning it around to see what he'd come up with this time. Kippei was fairly predictable with his lineups--they had no alternate, and there were only so many combinations that worked. Still, it was always interesting, trying to predict what the best possibility would be against the more or less unknown slots of an opponent.

She stared at it, frowning, and looked up at him in confusion. What? "Kippei, what the hell is this?"

"It's the lineup for the tournament," he answered tiredly, trying to run his fingers through his hair, an old habit from when it had been long enough to do so.

"I know _that_ ," she snapped, shaking it at him. "Kippei, this is..." Her lips pressed together in a thin line and she held the paper up and ripped it in half, once and then again. She let the torn pieces flutter to the table as she glared at him. "I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, but you had better fix it. They deserve a chance, Kippei. You've given them a chance and now you're throwing it away? That's insane," she said flatly, gesturing at the remnants of the lineup. "You know that isn't going to work. Even I know it isn't going to work. You cannot be serious. You'll get slaughtered."

Doubles two, Sakurai and Ishida. Doubles one, Mori and Uchimura. Singles three, himself. Singles two, Kamio, and Shinji in singles one.

What. the. fuck. An shook her head in disbelief. "Have you lost your mind? You're playing Hyotei, Kippei, and they have two damn good pairs. You need Kamio and Shinji in doubles." Ishida and Sakurai could possibly, maybe, beat Hyotei's Silver pair. Probably not. Putting Mori and Uchimura against their D1 was practically suicide.

Kippei's jaw set in the stubborn line she knew too well. "They'll be fine."

"Like hell," she retorted. "Kippei, what is _wrong_ with you? The whole team has been wondering why you haven't had Kamio and Shinji practicing doubles all week. They've been practicing on their own, did you know that? They all figured it was a sure thing you were going to have them in doubles, so they've been at the street courts, kicking arse and making sure they were ready. And you were going to hand them this?" She waved disdainfully at the torn shreds of paper. "I don't know what your problem is, but get over it. Fast."

That was when she remembered the kiss, and the look she hadn't quite seen on Kippei's face. "Is this about them?" she demanded. "You're trying to break them up? You're going to let the whole team lose because you're jealous?" Total, absolute disbelief was An.

Kippei winced briefly and then frowned. "It's not that." It sure as hell was that, if the slightly guilty look in his eye was anything to go by.

"Fix it," An said sharply. "Get the hell over it and fix that damn lineup. You know better than that. You _owe_ them better than that." She held the glare several seconds longer for emphasis, and then turned away, pretending to ignore him.

Kippei sighed and took out another sheet of paper, just staring at it. "Yeah," he said finally, his voice barely audible. "Yeah." He started scribbling, and a minute later he handed her the page. "Better?" he asked wryly.

An took the offered list and studied it critically. D2: MoriKyo, D1: KamIbu, S3: Ishida, S2: Sakurai, S3: Kippei. She nodded, once. "That'll work," she agreed. To be fair, it still only gave them a slim fighting chance, but it was a chance. Mollified now, she gave him a sympathetic look. "Which of them is it, anyway?" she asked curiously, laying the paper back down on the table in front of him.

Hopefully not Kamio, because that would make An herself feel bad, knowing that Akira liked her and she damn well liked him back, too. If Kippei wanted him, he was well out of luck, and An would feel sorry for everyone involved. Including Shinji, she thought, remembering the look he'd thrown at Kippei before he asked Akira to kiss him. It would suck for him and Kippei both if Kippei was interested in Akira instead. But... thinking back over the various glances she had seen in both directions, she was fairly certain that was not the case.

Kippei gave her a sideways look, and at first she thought he wasn't going to answer. His mouth was set in a firm line, and he looked as if he would much rather simply forget the whole thing entirely and try to convince himself that he didn't care. Something that rarely worked, in An's admittedly slight experience. Then he sighed, seemingly giving up, and sat back in his chair, looking tired in a way that went deeper than mere fatigue.

"Shinji," he muttered, tracing his finger over Shinji's name on the sheet of paper. "It's Shinji. I..." he shook his head. "I'll get over it." He gave her a weary smile that didn't reach his eyes, and she shook her head.

"Kippei, you are an idiot," she informed him, but she was smiling now, her eyes shining with delighted relief. "You should tell him."

Her brother's head came up, and he stared at her, frowning. "He's Akira's," he said flatly. She knew if that had been true, Kippei would never have said a word to either of them, no matter what it cost him personally. But it wasn't true.

"No he isn't," she chirped, twinkling at him. "They're not together, Kippei," she told him, laughing. "They were just...practicing." Still amused by this, and doubly so by the look on Kippei's face, she started stacking paperwork, clearing the table and putting things away. "They're at the street courts now," she informed him, apparently at random, but she was not at all surprised when he shook off his shock, pushing his chair back immediately and started out of the room.

Then he stopped, coming back to give her a brief, fierce hug. "Thanks, An-chan," he murmured, dropping a kiss on her hair as he left again.

"No problem," she said softly to his disappearing back, smiling like the sun come out. All's well that ends well, and all that.

Tomorrow she would tell Akira that he'd had enough practice, and if he didn't kiss her already she was going to kiss him first. And she would, too.  


**Author's Note:**

> There is a second part to this that will be posted eventually~!


End file.
